


who knows me half as well as me

by ten_miles_til_midnight



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-03
Updated: 2013-11-03
Packaged: 2017-12-31 08:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1029673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ten_miles_til_midnight/pseuds/ten_miles_til_midnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Both of Jordan’s parents were wizards, but his father was Muggle-born, so Jordan and his siblings grew up rooting for both the Moose Jaw Meteorites and the Edmonton Oilers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who knows me half as well as me

Both of Jordan’s parents were wizards, but his father was Muggle-born, so Jordan and his siblings grew up rooting for both the Moose Jaw Meteorites and the Edmonton Oilers. Growing up, he spent as much time playing shinny on the ice rink his father would conjure up in the backyard as he did zooming around on his dad’s old Cleansweep, chasing after the Quaffle. He played peewee and bantam hockey with his Muggle cousins even after he started attending the Saskatchewan School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, and he might be a wizard, but Jordan knew that hockey was the best sport in the world. 

Jordan loved flying – who wouldn’t? – and he loved playing pick-up Quidditch with his classmates, but it couldn’t compare to a fresh sheet of ice or the way he could feel the vibrations of the goal buzzer all the way down to his bones. Hockey was a special type of magic that had nothing to do with a wand, and even as a kid Jordan knew he wanted to play hockey for the rest of his life.

The summer he turned fifteen, he was drafted by the Regina Pats and his parents sat him down for a talk. 

“If you want to keep playing hockey, your mother and I can make that happen,” his father told him. “Your Muggle Studies professor said that he would allow you to use Junior hockey as a substitute for Muggle Studies, provided you write a paper about the role of hockey in Muggle Canadian culture.”

Professor Rhiel wore a Gretzky jersey under his robes and was responsible for maintaining the ice rink at school. Jordan had never taken Muggle Studies, but Professor Rhiel was still his favorite teacher.

His mother, who was a pureblood and had never understood his love of hockey even though she had always been supportive, took his hand. “If you really want to, you can keep playing hockey but Jordan, honey, it will be so difficult. You can still play hockey without playing for the Pats. You could play midget hockey on the weekends and still be a normal student.”

To Jordan, the idea of playing Junior hockey – of playing for the Regina Pats, for his hometown team – was a dream come true and worth any amount of difficulty. “I know playing for the Pats and studying for my NEWTs will be hard, but it’s _hockey_.” Jordan gave his father pleading eyes. He’d never had to explain his love of hockey to his father before.

“It’s not just about schoolwork, although your father and I expect you to do well on your exams and hockey is no excuse for poor marks,” his mother told him. “Jordan honey, you would be living between two worlds. None of your classmates will understand why you’re always gone playing hockey, and none of your teammates can know you’re a wizard. It won’t be like playing with your cousins. You’ll have to lie about school and your classes and your entire life. That won’t be easy.”

“But Mom,” Jordan protested. “Playing for the Pats would be worth it. I can deal with my teammates.”

His mother sighed. “I’ll make a deal with you. If you can play midget hockey this year and still do well on your OWLs, you can play for the Pats when you’re sixteen.”

Jordan cheered and begged his father to conjure up an ice sheet in the backyard even though it was summer, so he could practice his stick handling. He had been playing hockey with Muggles his entire life. How much more difficult could playing for the Pats be?

***

Jordan debuted for the Regina Pats in his sixth year, after earning six OWLs and a strict lecture from his mother about the importance of secrecy and preparing for his NEWTs. She had been right; juggling schoolwork and Junior hockey was harder than he thought it would be, and Jordan hadn’t been prepared for how isolated he would feel. All his free time was taken up by hockey practice and studying since, unlike his teammates, Jordan couldn’t exactly practice charms or Transfiguration in the back of the bus during road trips. He had nothing in common with his teammates beyond hockey and his school friends started to drift away when he started spending his evenings holed up in the library studying instead of hanging out in the Common Room playing Exploding Snap.

Constantly editing his stories about school and his classmates so he could talk to his teammates in the locker room and on road trips was weird and exhausting. Early in his rookie year, Jordan showed up to practice with snow still clinging to his hair from an epic afternoon snowball fight he had been caught in on his way to Charms class only to realize that he couldn’t tell his teammates about it without taking out the aerial attacks on broomsticks and bewitched snowballs, at which point the snowball fight didn’t actually seem that epic. 

“Your school has snowball fights on the way to class?” Tubes asked. “That’s pretty lame.”

Eventually, Jordan gave up on trying to socialize with his teammates and used the long bus rides to catch up on sleep since he couldn’t do his homework.

His Charms partner Blake, who wasn’t too bad for a Flames fan, offered to teach him a spell that would make his textbooks appear like Muggle books when he found out why Jordan was missing so many classes.

“When do you study?” he asked Jordan.

Jordan groaned. “All my teammates complain about how difficult it is to study geometry and chemistry in the back of a bus and I can’t even tell them to shut up, it’s nothing compared to memorizing Potions or Astronomy. I’m just glad I was able to convince them that my Arithmancy homework was actually Trig.”

“And half your subjects are practical. How do you practice Charms or Defense?”

“I spend a lot of time in the bathroom on road trips. My teammates think I’m insane.”

“Yeah, right. _Insane_.” Blake smirked and made finger quotes.

Jordan flushed. “It’s embarrassing.”

After that, Blake started coming to the Pats’ home games and Jordan stopped feeling quite so alone.

***

“Do you ever think about playing for the NHL?” Blake asked him one day during their seventh year, sitting in the library, deep in the midst of NEWTs revisions. The Pats were fighting for first seed in their division and NEWTs were in less than a month, and Jordan felt like he was drowning between the extra practices and his revision schedule.

“Yeah, I’ve thought about it a couple of times.” Jordan had been thinking about little else since being named the WHL Player of the Month in October and scouts had started coming to his games. 

“Are you going to enter the draft? If you had the chance, would you play in the NHL?”

Jordan looked at Blake like he had asked if Merlin had worn a robe. “Yes! Of course I would. I mean, God, that’s been my dream practically my whole life. Why would I turn down the chance to play in the NHL?”

Blake tapped the table with the tip of his quill. “You would have to live like a Muggle for years.”

“I basically live like a Muggle now,” Jordan grumbled. “Do you know how bad a Muggle locker room smells?”

“Look, my summers suck. I go back to my parents’ house and all of a sudden, this huge part of my life disappears. I’m not allowed to use magic and I have to remember how to do everything by hand and no one understands why I’m so frustrated. I try to hang out with my old friends from grade school but I can’t really talk to them because I have to lie about everything that’s happened during the school year. I can’t wait until we graduate and I’m allowed to be a wizard full time. You would be signing up for years of that awful half life.”

Jordan rubbed his temples. “I know, I really do. I’m always a step behind everyone, I don’t know how anything works, I never understand anyone’s references and the only thing I can really talk to my teammates about it hockey. I’m pretty sure they all think I’m a little slow. But Blake, it’s _hockey_. It would be worth it.” He really needed to figure out a better explanation than _it’s hockey_. It made perfect sense to him, but no one else thought it was enough.

Blake gave him a skeptical look, but all he said was, “Well, let me know if you have any questions about Muggles.”

Jordan had a whole list, but it could wait until after the playoffs and exams.

***

Being drafted by the Edmonton Oilers – in the first round! – was a dream come true. The meeting with Robert Lovegreen, the Undersecretary of the Canadian Society of Magic’s Muggle Liaison Office, was more like a nightmare.

“It is vital that the Canadian magical community remain a secret from Muggle society,” Lovegreen had told him pompously, sitting in his stuffy office three days after the draft, “and we’re concerned that a wizard being involved in such a high profile Muggle activity might compromise the safety of every witch and wizard in Canada. Surely you understand why the Canadian Society of Magic has concerns about your...” he paused to check his notes, “hockey career.”

Jordan’s blood ran cold. “You can’t tell me I’m not allowed to play hockey,” he protested, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve finished school and there’s no law against wizards working in a Muggle profession.”

There wasn’t. He and Blake had checked.

Lovegreen looked across the glossy table at him. “I am charged with keeping the Canadian magical community and, by extension, the entire world’s magical community, safe, and if your little hobby threatens that safety then let me assure you, Mr. Eberle, I can and will prevent you from playing.”

In the end, it was Blake who came to his rescue, pointing out that first round draft picks were a big deal and that the Oilers had an active and vocal fan base who would notice if their first round draft pick suddenly decided not to play.

“They’ll ask questions,” Blake told Lovegreen the next day. “They’ll be angry that they wasted a first round pick on a player who won’t play, and they’ll ask why. And then they’ll look at his Junior career and ask questions about where he went to school. If you want to keep the magical community secret, you have to let Jordan play.”

Lovegreen and the Muggle Liaison Office weren’t happy, and Jordan spent the summer suffering through endless talks about the importance of secrecy and the potential ramifications if Muggles found out he was a wizard (Jordan tuned some of those out since no one had tried to burn a witch in Canada in forever, plus he could do _magic_ , he was pretty sure he’d be fine) and how he could never use magic to influence his play or on his gear or during a game (Jordan was pretty sure the Muggle Liaison Office had never seen a hockey game, since how he would have time to pull out his wand and cast a quick spell in the middle of a hockey shift was beyond him), but in the end, they agreed to let him play.

***

As disappointed as he was about not making the Oilers, Jordan wasn’t really surprised and he hoped that spending another year with the Pats while he wasn’t in school would be good for him. He was pretty sure he could handle Oilers hockey, but he was less sure about living with Muggles all the time. He opted to live with his Muggle grandparents in an attempt to get more exposure to Muggle culture. The Pats had offered to find him a billet family if he needed it, but that felt like too big of a first step.

"I don't know how well that will work, dear," his grandmother told him. "Your grandfather and I are so used to your parents and sisters just appearing in the living room and making the teacups dance across the table,” Jordan snorted at the memory of his sister trying to recreate the musical number from Beauty and the Beast after their cousins made her watch it, “we're probably not the best example of normal Muggle family." 

She was probably right. Jordan’s father still came over on the morning after a heavy snow to clear the sidewalks and driveway with a hot-air charm.

"I think it would be better if I eased my way into Muggle life," he told his grandparents earnestly. "Plus, I'm not going to use any magic. No Apparating or recreating Disney movies, I promise. I’m going to live like a total Muggle.”

His grandmother smiled gently at him. “Maybe just a little magic. Your baby cousins would be heartbroken if you refused to do the teacup dance, and I know your father was counting on you to take over snow shoveling duties.”

“Maybe just a little magic,” Jordan conceded. When his grandmother caught him doing the dishes with a _Scourgify_ charm a week later, she raised her eyebrow, but didn't say anything. He wasn’t great at not using magic, but at least his grandparents could teach him how to drive a car and didn’t laugh when they had to explain to him what Tivo was.

After the draft, Blake made him buy a cellphone and a laptop and gave him a list of movies and TV shows he had to watch if he wanted to avoid being mistaken for an alien.

"I like Muggle sports," he whined to Blake, looking at the wall of DVDs in the electronics section of Wal-Mart. "Why do I have to watch Muggle TV too?"

"Do you want to have something to talk to your teammates about or not?" Blake asked him.

“Why are there three Fast and the Furious movies?” he grumbled. “Can’t I just watch the first one?” 

“Jordan, I swear to Merlin, if you insult the Fast and the Furious movies we can’t be friends anymore.”

Jordan meekly added all three movies to his cart. Turns out, they were pretty great, and definitely worth being teased by his grandfather for not knowing how to use a DVD player.

***

Jordan’s third year with the Pats was so much better than the previous two. He led the Pats in scoring and played well enough to be named to the Canadian World Junior team. The day before the U18 tournament began, Jordan found an owl pecking at the window of the hotel in Ottawa with a message from Lovegreen about the importance of secrecy when dealing with the Muggle press. Jordan only barely managed to get the message from around its ankle before Tubes came out of the bathroom.

“Holy shit, was that an owl?”

“Yeah,” Jordan said, crumbling the letter in his pocket. “I think it was hurt or something.”

“You life is weird, Ebs.”

Later that day, he sent Blake a message. _it would b easier 2 keep magic a secret if lovegreen would stop sending me owls @ a muggle tournament_ Jordan had never had a cell phone until he started playing for the Pats, but he was a big fan, and he wished more wizards had them. They were so much more convenient than owls or the Floo Network.

_just imagine lovegreen w/ a blackberry_ Blake sent back.

_he would have 2 cast aparecium 2 figure out how 2 open teh msg_

***

Being assigned to the Springfield Falcons in March was even better than playing in Regina. Despite Jordan’s newfound love for Dexter and the Fast and the Furious franchise, things were still awkward with his teammates and Jordan was just happy that he could participate in team conversations that year.

In Springfield, no one had known him when he was the weird kid who went to a special high school and never understood anyone’s jokes and had never seen the latest episode of anything. Springfield was a chance to start over and prove to himself that he could actually fit in with a team of Muggles.

He was the youngest player on the team by two years and the only WHL call-up, but Duby and the other younger players made sure he was invited to video game nights and slipped him a beer when the team went out to a bar. He was usually the quietest person on the bus during road trips, but he wasn’t an outsider, just the new kid, and Jordan was pretty sure it would be even better when it was the Oilers, when he was on the same team for an entire year.

***

_August, 2010:_

Going to rookie camp after being named MVP at World Juniors and CHL Player of the Year and being invited to play at the World Championships was nerve wracking. Jordan was going places, he knew he was, and he desperately wanted to be going places with the Oilers. The Oilers were starting a rebuild and Jordan wanted to be part of that process, not languishing in the AHL for another year. 

Seeing Taylor Hall again only made Jordan want to make the team more. Jordan knew who Taylor Hall was, obviously. He’d watched the Memorial Trophy finals – Taylor was _good_ – and they had played together at World Juniors. He’d been busy trying to fend off Lovegreen’s flurry of warnings about his press duties and live up to the A on his chest and score all the goals, but he hadn’t been too busy to notice Taylor’s soft hands and his fierce look of concentration when he was on the ice. He and Taylor could be great together, Jordan just knew it. All he needed was a chance to prove it.

Taylor bumped shoulders with Jordan the first day of prospect camp, standing on the ice at Rexall Place for the first time. “You and I,” he said, staring up at the forest of championship banners hanging from the rafters, “we’re going to light this place up.” Jordan couldn’t help but grin back.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.”

***

Jordan had never lived with Muggles who didn’t know that he was a wizard. He had lived at school and then with his grandparents while he played for the Pats, and during his brief stays with the Springfield Hawks, he had had his own hotel room. Jordan thought he would be content to keep it that way. Living with a teammate was one of the (many) things the Muggle Liaison Office had warned him against, and while it wasn’t strictly forbidden, living with Muggles either meant living as a Muggle (and who would want that, life without the _Scourgify_ charm wasn’t worth living) or risking constant exposure. Jordan had agreed that once he made the team, it would be best if he found his own apartment and didn’t billet with a teammate, despite it going against tradition. He had no desire to learn how to actually cook or do his laundry, plus hockey equipment smelled horrible without the _Odoratus_ charm. Jordan was pretty sure he was giving Lovegreen ulcers; getting his own place seemed like a small concession to make.

When Coach Renney and Tambellini took him and Taylor aside at the end of training camp and told them they were definitely staying with the club for the year and to look into finding a permanent places to stay, Taylor had whooped with delight and mass texted his entire contact list with the news. Then he turned to Jordan and asked, “Wanna be roomies, Ebs?”

Jordan had only known Taylor for a few weeks and already he was terrible at telling him no. He didn’t even have to think about it before agreeing. “Maybe a place with a fireplace,” he suggested

“Ooh, is Edmonton too cold for you, Regina boy?” Taylor chirped.

“Regina is way colder than Calgary, you non. I just like fireplaces.”

“We’ll put it on the list of requirements for the realtor,” Taylor promised.

fml, he texted to Blake once he was back in his hotel room. _just agreed 2 live w Hallsy nxt yr.._

_HAHAHA. ur going 2 have 2 learn how 2 cook w/o magic._

_we’ll jst order take-out all the time since well b :-$$$ hockey players_

_ur goin 2 have 2 learn how 2 clean the BR w/o scourgify_

_idk, Hallsy doesnt seem 2 brite. I can probably still get away w a quick tergeo_

_& if not, u can always obliviate him._

Jordan made a face at his phone. Lovegreen had told Jordan that if he slipped up and any of his teammates caught him using magic or doing something that couldn’t be explained away, he would be expected to erase their memories of the event. Lovegreen had been adamant, and even Blake and Jordan’s parents had agreed, but the idea of erasing a teammate or a friend or _Taylor’s_ memory made Jordan’s stomach churn. There were laws regulating the use of memory charms in the magical community, and Oblivating someone without their knowledge meant jail time. Jordan didn’t think Muggles should be treated any different. Also, Jordan had been on a three-day road trip to play the Medicine Hat Tigers the week memory spells had been covered in Charms and he had never quite gotten the hang of them. Accidentally erasing a teammate’s entire week or frying their brain was a non-beauty move.

***

Jordan’s first month in the NHL passed in a blur of practice, playing NHL ‘10 with Taylor on their awesome couch (video games were another Muggle invention that Jordan thought was brilliant, now if only they had come up with a quicker way to travel than busses and planes), scoring his first NHL goal in his first NHL game against Calgary on home ice (Blake had been horribly disgruntled about it) and figuring out how exactly Muggles managed without magic.

Jordan’s plan had been to follow Taylor’s lead. He _was_ a Muggle, surely he knew how Muggles did things like cook and do the laundry, but while Taylor was good at video games and hockey, he was hopeless around the house and they let an entire refrigerator full of food spoil on their first road trip.

“I guess you can’t leave food in the fridge forever,” Jordan said, pouring curdled milk down the sink and wishing he could use a Bubble-Head Charm while doing so.

“I thought the whole point of a fridge was that your food _wouldn’t_ go bad,” Taylor grumbled, tossing fuzzy tomatoes and carrots into a trash bag.

“You should ask your mom how long food can stay in the fridge before it starts to go bad before we leave for our next road trip.”

“You should ask _your_ mom,” Taylor retorted, sniffing a carton of leftover pad thai and gagging at the smell.

“Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” His mother had never owned a refrigerator in her life. He had seen her eyeing his grandparents’ refrigerator with mistrust and when he was young, she would warn him and his siblings about eating the food from the mysterious Muggle box. He doubted she would be much help. He made a mental note to ask Blake later. He would chirp Jordan forever, but he would (probably) give a real answer.

***

At first, Jordan left his wand in Edmonton during road trips. There was never enough privacy on the road to use magic – Juniors had taught him that – and he didn’t want to risk one of the guys going through his bag and asking questions. Not having a wand at least near him was unsettling though, and he spent his first few road trips as an Oiler instinctively reaching for the wand that wasn’t tucked in his back pocket or the side of his backpack. He didn’t carry his wand that often when he was in Edmonton and was more or less used to it, despite the slew of frustrated texts he sent to Blake about how he couldn’t wait to retire and be a proper wizard and how do Muggles deal with traffic, life isn’t worth living without Apparition. It was different, though, knowing that his wand was just across town as oppose to it being a thousand miles away in a different country.

Even after years of existing on the fringes of Muggle society, Jordan was never quite sure of all the rules or how to manage without magic. During his fourth road trip as an Oiler, a short four-day trip to California and Arizona, he and Hallsy were wrestling in the hotel lobby in Anaheim while they waited for the rest of their team to show up. Jordan was trying to fight his way out of a headlock when Taylor accidentally got a handful of fabric and tugged, causing the top four buttons to pop off and roll across the floor. Jordan was already reflexively reaching for his wand to cast a quick mending charm before he remembered that it was tucked into his bedside table in their apartment back in Edmonton.

“Hallsy,” Jordan groused. “That was my only dress shirt.”

“Whoops,” Taylor said, clearly unrepentant.

“No seriously, you non, what am I supposed to wear to the game?”

“Just ask the front desk for a sewing kit and sew the buttons back on,” Gags told him. “It’s not that hard.”

“Do what?” Jordan was vaguely aware that sewing was a thing – Hallsy was weirdly obsessed with Project Runway and the contestants were always going on about facing and embroidery and pleating – but Jordan was raised in a household where Reparo reigned supreme and he had never learned any of the Muggle techniques for repairing broken items. The longer Jordan lived among Muggles, the more appreciation he had for their technology and innovations. Cell phones and email were infinitely more convenient than sending a message by owl or Floo, and who needed animated pictures when there were TV and movies? Video games and watching videos on YouTube were two of his favorite pastimes and Jordan was quickly becoming addicted to his laptop, but for every practical Muggle invention there were dozens of things magic did better, and Jordan was happy to pick and choose whatever he felt was the best option, Muggle or magic, and ignore the other. 

“You know, sew, a needle pulling thread,” Gags told him. “I didn’t expect Hallsy to know how to sew a button back on but I thought better of you, Ebs. Aren’t you supposed to be a real adult?”

“Hey,” Taylor protested. “I know how to sew on a button. My mom taught me before I went to Windsor.”

“You can sew on a button, but can’t do your own laundry?”

Taylor pouted. “I _could_ do my own laundry, but Ebby’s so much better at it.”

Whits muttered something under his breath about peasants and how he was too old to deal with this shit. “Well, repay the favor and help your boy make himself presentable before we head to the rink.”

“It’s going to take more than a little needle and thread to make Ebs presentable,” Jonesy chirped, which made Taylor tackle him in defense of Jordan’s honor and everything devolved from there.

Even with Taylor’s help it took almost an half an hour to fix his shirt. Muggle sewing sucked, Jordan decided, and after that he always made sure to tuck his wand into his overnight bag, just in case. Shirt buttons weren’t a big deal, but he didn’t want to find himself in trouble and thousands of miles away from his wand.

***

Jordan loved living in Edmonton. Unlike Regina, where the magical community was mostly built up around the Saskatchewan School for Witchcraft and Wizardry and the local branch of the Society of Magic, Edmonton had a vibrant magical community dating back to 1888 when a wizard named Angus Galwey found large herds of Re’em grazing in the aspen woods near the North Saskatchewan River and moved his family west from Ottawa so they could sell the animals’ lucrative blood. The woods and the Re’em herds were long gone, but Edmonton still had one of the largest magical communities in Canada. There was even an all-magical neighborhood in north Edmonton protected by a Muggle-Repelling Charm and an entire magical section of the West Edmonton Mall hidden behind a permanently closed Tim Hortons.

Jordan loved the magical section of West Ed, and he dropped by whenever he had an afternoon free. He loved his team, he really did, and Taylor was quickly become the best friend he’d ever had, but Jordan was still hiding a huge part of his life and sometimes the strain of worrying that he would screw up and give it all away was as overwhelming as all the pressure Edmonton was heaping on him and Taylor. Walking through the hallways at West Ed, past shops full of hooting owls and bins overflowing with newt eyes and frog spleens, watching kids argue over the best broomstick and dare each other to try the suspicious colored Bertie Bott, felt like going home. Smarties were great, but Jordan still preferred Chocolate Frogs.

It was also nice to hang out with other wizards his own age that weren’t his siblings or Blake. He met Mike and Stephan in Beaulieu’s Sports Bar at West Ed two months after moving to Edmonton, sitting alone, sipping a mulled mead and watching the Moose Jaw Meteorites’ play the Sweetwater All-Stars via a two way mirror over the bar. Hockey might be the best sport in the world, but that didn’t mean that Jordan wasn’t eagerly following the Meteorites’ season.

“How long has the match been going?” a friendly voice at his shoulder asked.

“Over half a day already,” Jordan told him, twisting to face the stranger. “The Snitch showed up about half an hour ago, but the Seekers almost collided trying to get to it, and by the time they had untangled themselves, it was gone. Want to sit?”

Jordan spent the rest of the afternoon with Stephan and Mike, catching up on the latest Quidditch news and watching the game. They had also just moved to Edmonton and worked at E. M. L. Potions Co. They had both grown up in all-magical communities and Edmonton as the first time either of them had interacted with Muggles.

“I almost took Muggle Studies in school, but I never thought it would be useful,” Stephan admitted when he saw the dollars in Jordan’s wallet. “Turns out I was wrong.”

“My Dad’s Muggleborn,” Jordan explained, “so I spent a lot of time with my Muggle cousins growing up.” 

When he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket to check the time and his messages – Taylor asking where he’d disappeared to all afternoon and demanding he come home and play Call of Duty – during a lull in the game, Mike asked, “What is that?” 

“It’s a cell phone, a Muggle thing that lets you send messages and talk to people. I mostly work with Muggles. Actually, all Muggles. And my roommate is a Muggle. They’re not so bad once you get to know them.”

Stephan shuddered. “I can’t believe you live with a Muggle. How do you manage without magic?”

Jordan laughed. “Not super well,” and launched into the story about the two weeks he spent trying to figure out the washing machine and flooding their laundry room before running out of clean socks, giving up and making sure to lock the door before using a _Tergeo_ spell.

When Jordan got home (the Snitch had finally been caught, fourteen hours after the game began, and Jordan was profoundly grateful that hockey only had twenty minutes of overtime before going to a shoot-out) with plans to get lunch with Stephan and Mike and some of their coworkers that weekend, Taylor was sprawled on the couch, arms crossed and glaring at the Islanders game on TV. “Oh, there you are,” he snipped.

Jordan dropped into his armchair next to Taylor and kicked him lightly in the ankle. “I told you I was hanging out with some friends. You could have played Call of Duty against Maggie.”

Taylor shrugged. “I did. It wasn’t the same without you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you too,” Jordan told him. “Now, switch to something better than this crap. Even Tavares can’t make the Isles worth watching this season.”

***

Jordan kept hanging out with Mike and Stephan and their friends, no matter how much it made Taylor pout and complain that Jordan didn’t need other friends, he had Taylor. Taylor was still his best friend, but listening to Mike and Stephan bicker about the correct way to brew Bundimun Pomade or shuddering at their friend Lauren’s horror stories from her job with the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad (her story about an angry witch who cast an overly powerful Slug-vomiting Charm on her brother that left him vomiting slugs for a week reminded him to be very, very nice to his sisters) was a lifeline to the other half of his life that he couldn’t give up. He dragged them to a Muggle bar so they could meet Taylor once, but the wizards had been awkward and confused by everything from how to pay for their drinks to the jukebox in the corner and choking on aborted references to broomsticks and magic all night long, and they called it an early night.

“Your friends are weird,” Taylor told him as they drove home.

“Mike’s girlfriend just dumped him,” Jordan lied. “He was a little on edge tonight.”

“I don’t know how you do it,” Stephan told him the next week while watching Puddlemere United beat the Karasjok Kites. “What do you even talk about with Muggles?”

Jordan shrugged. “Hockey, mostly. I watch Muggle TV and movies too. It was hard at first, but I’ve been playing hockey with Muggles my whole life. It’s basically second nature now.”

“But don’t you miss being a wizard? A proper one, who doesn’t have to deal with cars or what did you call it, b-mail?”

“Honestly, email is way more convenient than sending an owl and you never have to keep mice on hand,” Jordan protested. Stephan and Mike just looked at him pityingly. “Okay fine, I miss it,” he admitted, slumping down in his seat and stretching out his legs. “I hate that I’m lying to all my friends and sneaking around and God damn, I hate Muggle transportation.”

“So why do you do it?”

“It’s hockey.” Jordan shrugged. “I get to play hockey for a living. I can’t think of anything I want more.” He knew wizards didn’t get it, but it was as much of an explanation as he had. “And they’re my friends and this is my life. I don’t want to walk away.”

***

Jordan was terrible at hockey pranks. He didn’t mind them, at least no more than anyone minded finding their skate laces cut or getting a cup of water to the face when pulling their shin pads down from above their stall, but he was hopeless at pulling them. Pranks fell squarely in the realm of things that were better with magic. Putting baby powder in someone’s hair dryer was funny. Slipping someone a Comb-a-Chameleon and watching their hair change style every time they tried to fix it was funnier. Flooding a hotel room with water was good, but it was easier with an _Aguamenti_ spell and it wasn’t as funny as hitting someone with a well-timed Jelly-Legs Curse when they stepped onto the ice.

Taylor tried to include him in his pranks, but even he thought Jordan was hopeless.

“Seriously, Ebs, hurry up,” he hissed as Jordan stood teetering on a stool, trying to glue Ladi’s shoes to the ceiling.

“Why am I the one doing this?” Jordan hissed back, thinking about how much easier this would be with an _Epoximise_ spell. “You’re like three inches taller than me.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty short,” Taylor retorted, mocking Jordan’s height on pure instinct.

Their prank ended with only one shoe glued to the ceiling and Coach walking in on Jordan tackling Taylor to the locker room floor.

“It was totally worth the bag skate,” Taylor tried to convince him later that night as they ate dinner.

“No, Hallsy, it really wasn’t. It was a terrible prank.”

***

Jordan’s first season in the NHL ended in disappointment and early April, and before he knew it, he and Taylor had packed up their cars for the drive back to their parents’ for the summer. He meant to give Taylor a bro hug before he left for his drive across Canada, but instead Jordan ended up wrapping both arms around him for a proper hug. Taylor hugged him back and they both pretended that their eyes weren’t a little damp when they pulled apart.

“I don’t know why you’re so upset, you non,” Taylor muttered, voice still thick. “It’s not like we won’t see each all summer. And there’s Skype and texts.”

“Oh shut up, Hallsy,” Jordan told him affectionately. “There’s no way I’m going to miss doing your laundry or eating KD every meal.”

“Weak chirp, Ebs,” Taylor told him before giving him one last hug, shouldering his last bag and getting in his car.

It wasn’t until Jordan finished packing up his own car and pulling onto the QE2 Highway to Calgary that he realized that his parents, who lived in an all-magical community outside of town, probably didn’t have a place for him to park his car, and they didn’t have a phone so he could call and ask. And shit, they almost certainly didn’t have Internet. _This is going to be a long summer_ , Jordan thought as he pulled off the highway and turned back towards Edmonton so he could Floo his parents and see what he should do with his car.

“I don’t see why you need your car here anyways,” his mother told him, after patiently listening to him complain about how someone needed to invent a portable Floo. “We’re hooked up to the Floo network and you can Apparate anywhere else you need to go.”

“... Right,” Jordan said. “I’ll just Apparate home, then.”

“That would probably be best, dear. Make sure you’re home in time for dinner.”

“I’m still buying you a phone,” Jordan shouted at the fireplace as he went to unload his bags out from the car.

Being home was as weird as Jordan thought it would be. All season long, he had thought longingly about having a whole summer to use magic whenever he wanted, about using a summoning charm when the remote was out of reach or a vanishing spell instead of hauling the garbage out to the dumpsters. (He thought about that last one a lot, especially when it was snowing.) He’d thought about summoning up a proper sheet of ice for some shinny and playing Quidditch again for the first time in nine months, and it was nice, it really was, but it wasn’t second nature anymore. For his entire first week home, he instinctively started to wash the dishes by hand after dinner until Whitney reminded him to use a cleaning charm, and he was even a little shaky on a broom.

“Merlin’s pants, when was the last time you were on a broomstick?” his brother asked, watching him try and remember how to pull a broomstick out of a dive without ending up sprawled on the grass. “You didn’t use to be this terrible.”

“Shut up,” Jordan shouted back, trying to find his balance. “I’ve been a little busy with hockey for the past year.”

“Yeah, busy finishing last in your conference.”

“Busy scoring the NHL’s Goal of the Year and being the top scorer on my team,” Jordan shouted back before casting a Langlock jinx and listening to Dustin’s angry, muffled shouts. At least some magic still felt normal.

He spent a lot of time texting Taylor, but even that was hard. There was no internet at his parents’ house, so he was stuck using his iPhone to watch the endless Youtube videos Taylor sent him and fending off Taylor’s suggestions to Skype, and for the first time in a year, he had to actively edit his stories for Muggle consumption. After spending a year not quite fitting in with his team, he suddenly found himself no longer fitting in back home. Blake was right; it sucked.

_Ebby, Im bored. theres nothing 2 do n Kingston & u wont even git on Skype 2 entertain me._ Jordan had been telling his teammates that there was a problem with his parents’ router, but he didn’t know how long that would placate them. 

_U could train. Rehab ur ankle. Learn how 2 fight._

_Screw you, I can fight just fine. all I did was go 2 the gym 2day. get online & play NHL 11 w/ me._

_Cant. Parents dont have a xbox._

_no xbox, no internet. what do u do all day?_

_I played street hockey w Dustin & some frnds from school._ Actually, he had Apparated to the fields surrounding his parents’ neighborhood to play Quidditch and had lost terribly. It turned out that chasing a puck across a frozen sheet of ice required a different skill set than throwing a Quaffle through a goal hoop.

Taylor went to the draft and sent him pictures of the SpongeBob roller coaster and the sea lions at the Mall of America and a selfie of him and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins in matching Oilers hats, arms slung around each other’s shoulders. _mabE Illl find a new best friend since u nevr wnt 2 talk 2 me_ the caption said, which was enough to prompt Jordan to Apparate back to their apartment in Edmonton and actually Skype him.

“Non-beauty move, Hallsy,” he said when Taylor picked up.

“Non-beauty move never being online,” Taylor retorted. “What the hell, how is your router still broken? You’ve been home almost three months. Just buy a new one.”

“The cable company said it was a problem with the wiring, I don’t even know.”

“So you’re just not going to have Internet all summer?”

Jordan shrugged. “At least I have my phone.”

“That’s bullshit, Ebs.”

Jordan shrugged again. He missed the Internet. He missed his car, which was ridiculous since Apparition and broomsticks were so much better in every possible way. He missed TV and video games and he missed Taylor so much that it felt like a lead ball had settled in his stomach. He had no idea when the Muggle life he had been faking had become his normal life, but it had and trying to fit back into his family’s magical household was giving him whiplash. “It’s been a weird summer, Hallsy.”

“Then come visit me.”

“Just like that?” Jordan asked, trying to ignore how desperately he wanted to see Taylor again. Not seeing Taylor every day was even weirder than having magic constantly thrust into his face. It made sense, Jordan had reasoned. Your rookie year was always stressful, and it only made sense that rookies, especially rookies who lived together and played on the same line, would end up a little co-dependent. It had nothing to do with Taylor’s stupid face and his stupid hair and his stupid lips. Nothing at all.

“Just book a ticket to Toronto and I’ll pick you up at the airport.” Taylor paused, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s weird being back in Kingston and living with my parents again. I don’t really know anyone here, and I miss being able to hang out with my friends.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Taylor grinned into the camera and Jordan smiled back, feeling lighter than he had all summer. “We’ll go down to the lake and you can finally play NHL ‘11.”

“Okay, I’ll text you my flight info,” Jordan promised, already planning on Flooing to Toronto and then Apparating to the airport. Magic might be terrible for communication, but it was light years ahead of Muggle travel. 

***

Jordan came back to Edmonton excited for the new season and quietly guilty about how relieved he was to no longer be living with his parents. He was ready for his regular life and hockey to start again. He’d been worried that after the long summer, it would be hard to fit back into his mostly Muggle life in Edmonton, but it felt far more like homecoming than going back to his parents’ had. He didn’t know if it was because he had managed to live with Taylor for an entire year without slipping up or just because he was no longer a rookie and worried about his spot on the team, but Jordan felt more confident this year.

He beat Taylor back to Edmonton by nearly a week, and was sitting on the couch playing NHL ‘11 with Maggie and Gags when Taylor opened the door, bags hanging off his shoulder, and something twisted in Jordan’s stomach.

It wasn’t like that hadn’t seen each other over the summer. Jordan had spent a week in Ontario with Taylor, and after the draft he’d gotten better about periodically Apparating to Edmonton to Skype with Taylor, but the occasional Skype call and a week playing video games in Taylor’s parents’ basement weren’t the same as spending an entire season living in someone’s back pocket.

His rookie year had been too stressful for Jordan to really pay attention to how much he liked Taylor, but seeing him again after a summer apart made it hard to stay in denial.

_Great_ , he thought, butterflies flapping in his stomach at the site of Taylor’s bright grin and tanned and toned arms. _Something else to hide._

***

In November, the Oilers went on a six game road trip that took them through Los Angeles, Phoenix, Montreal, Boston, Detroit and Chicago. Jordan got an owl from his mother before their game in California. _Dear Jordan_ , the note read. _Good luck on your road trip and remember to be careful with your wand while you’re on the road. I worry about how you manage when you’re constantly surrounded by your teammates. Work is going well and I finally tracked down the copy of the_ I Ching _I was looking for at Aristophanes’s Scriptorium in Salem, but it’s too old and fragile to ship by owl and I don’t have time to make a trip to Salem to pick it up. I know you’re going to be in Boston in a few days. Could you pop over to Salem to pick it up for me? Make sure to Floo when you get back to Edmonton. Your father and siblings send their love. –Mom_

Jordan almost grumbled – he was finally old enough to drink in the States and Whits had mentioned showing Jordan his favorite bar while they were in Boston – but he didn’t exactly mind the chance to see Salem. Located fifteen miles outside of the Muggle town of the same name, magical Salem was the oldest magical community in North America and one of the largest entirely magical communities in the world. Jordan had always wanted to visit. The Oilers arrived in Boston the morning after beating the Habs and Jordan made a vague excuse when Taylor asked if wanted to grab lunch with him and Seguin after morning skate. As soon as the door closed behind Taylor, Jordan pulled a robe over his jeans, grabbed his wand and Apparated to Salem.

While there was a substantial magical community in Edmonton, it was mostly intermixed with the Muggle community, and his parents’ all-magic community was almost entirely residential, so this was the first time Jordan had ever been in a proper, magical downtown. He poked his head into Trenholm’s Broomstick Emporium to pick up the latest issues of _Quidditch Quarterly_ and the candy store for a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans before finding Aristophanes’s Scriptorium and picking up his mother’s book, a giant tome of Ancient Runes.

“Any chance I can use a shrinking charm on this?” Jordan asked the proprietor, wondering how on earth he was going to hide the book in his suitcase for the rest of the trip.

Mr. Aristophanes was aghast at the suggestion. “Sir, the _I Ching_ is almost 700 years old. You can’t use any magic on it; it would interfere with the preservation spells.” He pulled the book back across the counter, away from Jordan’s clearly incompetent hands. “There are only a dozen original copies still in existence. Ms. Eberle assured me that you would take the very best care of it.”

“Oh yeah, that’s me, magical librarian,” Jordan muttered under his breath before submitting himself to Mr. Aristophanes’s lecture about the proper precautions to take when transporting rare, magical books.

Jordan Apparated back to the hotel, thankful that no one from his team was back yet, and spent half an hour shrinking his belonging to make room for the book and then casting a Muggle-Repelling Charm on the bag. Between the _I Ching_ , a set of robes and his wand, the last thing he needed was someone digging through his bag in search of a phone charger. Jordan had completely forgotten about the half-eaten bag of Bertie Bott’s he had tossed on the bedside table when Taylor and Nuge came back from lunch.

“Oh good, candy, I’m still hungry,” Taylor said, grabbing a handful of the jellybeans and tossing them in his mouth before Jordan could stop him. He cringed as Taylor gagged and spat the half chewed candies into his hand.

“The fuck are these, Ebby?” he sputtered between coughs. “God, I need something to drink. Those were the worst things I’ve ever tasted.”

“Oh, come on Hallsy,” Nuge said, trying to get away from a flailing Taylor. “How bad could they be? They’re just jellybeans. Licorice isn’t that gross.”

“Nugget, that wasn’t licorice I just ate,” Taylor swore, fishing out a few jellybeans and handing them to Ryan. “Did you put your gag candy on the table specifically to trick us, Ebby?”

“Pretty much,” Jordan said, trying to calm his furiously beating heart. It was just candy, there was nothing inherently incriminating about Taylor and Ryan seeing it.

They split the rest of the bag, guessing the flavor and daring each other to eat the grossest possibilities. “Here, Nuge, try this one,” Jordan said, offering Ryan a dark green jellybean. “Maybe it’s spinach and you’ll finally put on some muscle.”

“Shut up, Ebs,” Ryan grumbled, picking up the jellybean dubiously like it might explode. He bit down gingerly and chewed it a couple of times before sagging with relief. “Just mint. Your turn, Hallsy.”

Jordan had split countless bags of Bertie Bott’s with his siblings and classmates, but this was the first time he’d ever been able to with his teammates. He’d spent most of his rookie year too busy worrying about if he would be able to keep magic a secret to be frustrated by the necessity, but the more confident he felt, the more he chafed at the restrictions. He didn’t even want to tell the whole team, but he struggled to see why secrecy was so important that he couldn’t tell a couple of close friends. His Muggle cousins knew about witches and wizards, and Taylor was way more important to Jordan than some cousins he only saw once a year on holidays. He’d considered just telling Taylor the truth, but every few months he would get an owl from Lovegreen reminding him of the importance of keeping magic a secret and the consequences if he exposed it, and the thought of Obliviators showing up at their apartment and wiping Taylor’s memory was always enough to make him shelve his plans.

_what exactly is the law 4 telling Muggles about magic?_ he texted Blake once he was back in Edmonton.

_r u finally going 2 tell ur boy?_

_hes not my boy. i just want 2 no._

_but u want him 2 be ur boy, right? XP_

_Shut up. r u goin 2 help me or not?._

_of course ill help. I want tickts 2 a hockey game tho. when ur playing a good team._

The next day, an owl rapped against Jordan’s bedroom while Taylor was at the store. The paper, a thick parchment that Jordan hadn’t used since graduating, said: _Muggles are not permitted to know about the magical community unless they are i) a blood relative within one generation of a wizard an/or witch or ii) the lawfully wed spouse of the wizard and/or witch._ Blake had added  &9835; _if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it_ &9835; at the bottom of the paper.

Jordan’s friends were the worst.

***

It was the end of a seven game road trip when Jordan slipped up. Edmonton was snowy and freezing when they landed, and Jordan was exhausted. They had only earned two points and he was pretty sure his knee, which was still throbbing from the collision with Benn in their last game, wasn’t the minor sprain he had hoped it was. He wanted nothing more than to go home, curl up in his nice warm bed and sleep the sleep of the just, or at least the sleep of the hockey player who hadn’t seen his bed in over two weeks. Jordan slumped into the passenger seat of Taylor’s truck, blowing on his hands to warm them up.

“Hurry up, Hallsy, turn on the car. It’s cold as balls.”

“I’m trying,” Taylor told him, twisting the key and listening to the engine turn over unsuccessfully and die.

“Fuuuuck,” Jordan said, leaning his head against the window.

“Fuck,” Taylor agreed. “Okay, I’m going to see if I can find someone to help us out, or give us a ride home.”

“Good luck,” Jordan mumbled, looking out at the deserted parking lot. It was late and cold, and no one had hung around. “I’ll see if I can do anything with the engine.”

“Oh, right, so now you’re a mechanic too,” Taylor grumbled as he left the car and tromped off towards the airport. “Don’t fall and hurt yourself more.”

As soon as Taylor was out of sight, Jordan grabbed his wand and propped up the hood of the engine. He had no clue what any of the pieces did, but it was metal and covered in frost, which couldn’t be good for the engine. Jordan looked over his shoulder to make sure Taylor was nowhere in sight, conjured up some Bluebell Flames, and held his cupped hand, full of dancing, blue flames, over the engine.

Jordan was too busy contemplating the merits of Apparating home and telling Hallsy that he’d been abducted by aliens – Taylor watched a lot of dubious alien abduction specials on TV, he might buy it and it might be worth it to just get home – to notice the sound of footsteps crunching on the icy ground behind him. “No luck, Ebby, our asshole teammates are all gone, we’re going to have to call for a.... Holy shit, Ebs, are you on fire?”

Jordan whirled around, hands still wreathed in flames, and stared at Taylor with huge eyes. “Oh shit,” he swore, grabbing his wand off the edge of the truck and extinguishing the flames. 

“Ebby, what the hell was that? Was that fire? That was fire! How was that fire?”

“I think I fixed the engine,” Jordan offered weakly, stalling for time.

“I don’t fucking care about the engine!” Taylor shouted. “I... Jesus, I don’t even know what the say right now. What the hell was that?”

Jordan rubbed his face. He had spent most of his life around Muggles – his Muggle grandparents and cousins, countless teammates and friends and neighbors – but he had never actually told anyone he was a wizard. His dad’s family had always known that Jordan’s family was magic, and he’d been taught since childhood to never mention magic to Muggles. Nothing had prepared him for suddenly having to explain to his best friend that most of what he thought he knew about Jordan’s life was a lie, and Jordan had no idea how to start that conversation. “Can we go home first?”

Taylor still looked shell-shocked. “Fine, but as soon as we get home, you’re explaining.”

***

They rode back to their apartment in silence, Taylor’s hands white knuckled on the steering wheel and Jordan’s hand reflexively clutching his wand. He had imagined telling Taylor he was a wizard countless times, but he never thought it would be like this.

Jordan limped after Taylor into the apartment and Taylor let Jordan sit down on the couch and got him an icepack before demanding an explanation. “Okay, we’re home, so I’ll ask again. What the hell was that? Your hands were on FIRE and you keep clutching that stick. That... Ebby, that’s not normal.”

“It’s magic, Taylor.”

Taylor huffed a laugh. He didn’t sound very amused. “Right, sure, it’s magic. Pull the other one, it has bells.”

Jordan flicked his wand and transfigured a scrap of paper on the coffee table into a duck, which quacked woefully and pecked at an empty beer can. “It’s magic. I’m a wizard. This is my wand, I was trying to fix the car using _magic_.”

“You’re a wizard,” Taylor said blankly. “Since when?”

“Since always. My whole family is wizards.”

“Oh, so there are more of you?”

“There are a lot of us, Hallsy, but it’s a secret. Muggles, non-wizards like you, aren’t allowed to know.”

“So what was me seeing you? A mistake?”

“Yes, Hallsy, it was a mistake.”

“So, what? You go around casting spells when I’m not looking, like it’s some huge joke,” Taylor shouted, his fists balled at his sides.

“No, because I didn’t want to get caught, but it was cold and my knee hurt and our asshole teammates were gone and I just wanted to get home, so I made an exception,” Jordan yelled back. “You weren’t supposed to see.”

“Oh, so this is _my_ fault.” Taylor’s face was flushed and red, eyes wide and mouth pulled tight.

“For fucks sake, Taylor,” Jordan yelled back. “I didn’t say that.”

“If you’re some sort of wizard, then why are you even here? Why aren’t you off living in, I don’t know, a walking castle with magic carpets, casting spells on people and laughing.”

“To play hockey, Hallsy, same as you.”

Taylor didn’t say anything and Jordan fiddled with the wand still in his hand before thinking better of it. After a long pause, Taylor snarled, “Fine,” and turned to walk towards his room. 

“Hallsy,” Jordan shouted after him, “you can’t tell anyone about this. Please.”

“I won’t,” Taylor snapped and slammed his bedroom door shut.

Jordan buried his face in his hands. “That went well, said no one,” he muttered, grabbing his phone and texting Blake. _hallsy nos._

_did u finally man up & tell him? :D:D_

_he caught me using magic._

_what?!?_

_it was cold & the car was broken & i wanted 2 go home, so I was stupid & careless._

_what r u goin 2 do?_

_idk. I guess it depends on what hallsy does._

***

Taylor didn’t do anything. He didn’t confront Jordan at breakfast and demand more answers or march into the locker room the next day and announce that Jordan was crazy or a freak. In fact, he didn’t talk to Jordan at all. Jordan woke up early and had coffee waiting in the kitchen when Taylor stumbled in, but Taylor didn’t so much as glance at him or the coffee, and he retreated to his room as soon as he had fixed breakfast.

He came out of his room briefly to announce to the wall to the left of Jordan’s head that he would be leaving for Rexal at 1:30 if Jordan need a ride, but he turned the radio on high as soon as he started the car and escaped to the locker room while Jordan was still limping across the icy parking lot.

The trainers confirmed that he had sprained his knee in the collision with Benn the night before and ordered an MRI, ice and rest. Jordan limped down to the rink to watch the rest of practice, but Taylor kept his eyes on the ice and practiced slapshots while their teammates skated over to the bench to check on his knee. Jordan wasn’t the only one who noticed Taylor’s silent treatment. He caught Whits and Gags exchanging concerned looks, but he was too exhausted to deal with it.

The silent treatment continued for the next few days. Jordan wasn’t allowed to drive with a sprained knee, so Taylor had to chauffeur him to Rexall and back when he had an appointment with the trainers, but he wouldn’t talk to Jordan and would barely look at him. Jordan was miserable. He understood that finding out that there was an entire magical community hiding in plain sight had to be a huge shock, and he knew that some Muggles were violently opposed to magic once they found out about its existence, but he had never thought Taylor would be one of them. The longer Taylor’s silent treatment went on, though, the more worried Jordan became. Right now he was keeping Jordan’s secret, but if he was this upset by magic, how long would he keep silent?

Jordan knew he was suppose to Obliviate Taylor if he ever caught Jordan using magic, or at least alert the Muggle Liaison Office. He had always assumed that he would never be able to, but as the days crawled past, he couldn’t help but think about it. It was pretty obvious to Jordan that Taylor was never going to accept magic and he just wanted things to go back to the way they were last week. If he Obliviated Taylor, he would forget about the whole conversation and Jordan could get his best friend back. It would be like that awful night had never happened.

That thought stopped Jordan in his tracks. As much as he wanted things to go back to normal, erasing Taylor’s memory wasn’t the right thing to do, and he knew it. If he used magic to fix this fight, it would be so tempting to Obliviate Taylor the next time they argued or use a Confundus Charm to get his way. A friendship where one person had that sort of power over the other person wasn’t a real friendship: as much Jordan hated it, Taylor had every right to be angry with Jordan if he screwed up.

If he ever wanted to salvage his friendship, he was going to have to do it the Muggle way. 

Jordan spent the week sitting in the press box with Nuge while their team lost, and then lost again, lonely and miserable. After a 5-0 shutout by the Ducks, Nuge pulled him aside.

“Look, Ebs, it’s not really any of my business,” he started.

Jordan tensed. “You’re right, it’s not really any of your business,” he started to say, but Nuge talked right over his protests.

“But you and Taylor obviously had a fight and you’re both miserable and it’s not going to get better if you refuse to talk to each other.”

Jordan deflated. “You noticed that.”

“The fact that Hallsy won’t even look at you, much less speak to you? Yeah, Ebs, I noticed that. Everyone noticed that. Just say you’re sorry for whatever happened.”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“You can either sit around and both be miserable about it or you can try to fix it,” Nuge said, punching him on the shoulder. “At least think about it.”

As much as he hated to admit it, Nuge was right, and the next afternoon, Jordan grabbed Taylor’s arm on one of his rare trips out of his room. Taylor flinched out of Jordan’s grasp, but Jordan persevered. “Grab your coat,” he ordered. “We’re getting ice cream.” Taylor started to argue, but Jordan glared at him until he acquiesced and followed Jordan to his truck.

They ordered their ice cream in silence and Jordan stood awkwardly by the cashier, realizing he couldn’t have this conversation in the middle of an ice cream parlor. Taylor must have understood and taken pity on him, or maybe he just didn’t want to be seen with such a freak, because he jerked his head towards the door and they retreated to the privacy of Jordan’s car.

Jordan ate a few bites, too nervous to actually taste anything, before taking a deep breath. He’d been rehearsing his speech all afternoon. “Look, Taylor, I understand that suddenly finding out that magic is a real thing is probably unnerving and a lot to process,” he began.

“I don’t care about the magic,” Taylor interrupted.

“You don’t?”

“No,” Taylor shouted. “Well, I do, but I’m not _angry_ because you’re magic.” He put magic in douchey finger quotes and Jordan’s heart clinched with how much he _liked_ Taylor and how desperately he hoped everything wasn’t screwed up forever. “I’m angry because you lied to me. You’ve been lying to me about everything since we met. I thought we were friends.”

“Oh my God, Hallsy, we _are_ friends,” Jordan shouted back. “Do you think I wanted to lie to you?” Taylor didn’t say anything and Jordan resisted the urge he bang his head against the consol. “Hallsy, I’ve wanted to tell you the truth for ages but there are laws against telling Muggles. You have no idea how many lectures I had to sit through from the Ministry about secrecy. Bad things could happen if Muggles find out about us. I almost wasn’t allowed to play; I _had_ to keep this a secret.”

Taylor deflated. “You should have said that earlier.”

“I was freaking out and thought you hated me because I was a wizard. I’m sorry it didn’t occur to me to explain magical law.”

“Why would I hate you for that? Being magic sounds awesome!”

“I don’t know, it happens sometimes. People get weird.” Jordan glared at Taylor. “You got weird.”

“It’s a little strange, Ebby, but I don’t hate you because of it. I just wish you had told me.”

“I always wanted to tell you,” Jordan said, hoping Taylor could tell how sincere he was. “I want to tell you everything.”

“Oh. Good. I want to tell you everything too.”

He grinned hopelessly at Taylor and Taylor grinned back and for the first time in a week, Jordan breathed in and felt his lungs actually fill with air instead of choking fear and worry. He was also suddenly aware that he was sitting in a car holding a cup of ice cream in Edmonton in January, and it was freezing. Taylor had the same realization and he shivered. “So, this is great and everything, but can you maybe warm up the car a little.”

Jordan knew he meant turn on the heater, or maybe even use magic – one of the only spell Taylor had ever seen was used to heat up a car – but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at Taylor’s lips and thinking of other ways they could warm up the car. He caught himself, but not before Taylor saw him. “Yeah, sure, of course,” Jordan mumbled, embarrassed and fumbling for his car keys.

“Hey, hey,” Taylor interrupted, reaching out to grab Jordan’s hands. “Tell me if I’m reading this wrong, but...” he leaned over the console and brushed his lips against Jordan’s. It was a short kiss – Jordan was too stunned to really respond and Taylor clearly wasn’t going to push the issue – but Taylor was far braver than Jordan had ever been because he didn’t retreat across the car after pulling back. Instead he cupped Jordan’s face with one hand and said, “I need you to say something, Ebby.”

“Oh thank God,” Jordan said in a rush before grabbing Taylor’s coat with one hand and hauling him back for a proper kiss. There was nothing tentative about this kiss. Jordan had wanted this for ages and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity now that he had it. He licked his way into Taylor’s stupid, ridiculous mouth until they both pulled away to breathe and panted against each other’s mouth.

“I wanted to tell you about that too,” Jordan mumbled around a smile that felt too big for his face.

“Me too,” Taylor whispered back. He kissed Jordan again, and adjusted himself in his pants. “I just wish I’d chosen a better place to make a move.”

“I can make sure no one notices us,” Jordan told him, already reaching for his wand.

Taylor’s grin was blinding. “Then hurry the fuck up,” he said, already clambering into the backseat of Jordan’s SUV. Jordan cast a quick disillusionment charm with a flick of his wrist and a hot-air charm for good measure, then followed Taylor into the back seat. “Is your knee okay?” Taylor asked, pulling Jordan flush against his body and groping his ass. 

Jordan kissed him instead of answering and slid a hand between their trapped bodies.

“Wait, wait, Ebby, here,” Taylor gasped, pulling Jordan’s hand to his mouth and licking a wet, hot stripe across it.

“Merlin’s pants, your mouth, Hallsy,” Jordan groaned, getting his hand back into Taylor’s track pants and taking his cock in his hand.

“Ebby, Ebby,” Taylor panted against Jordan’s mouth, fumbling his own way into Jordan’s pants and grasping his dick with clever hands that Jordan had definitely jerked off thinking about. He rutted shamelessly against Taylor and blindly sought out his mouth before the tight pull of Taylor’s hand on his cock and the hot, wet perfection of his mouth pushed him over the edge.

The back of Jordan’s car was not big enough for two hockey players’ afterglow, even curled as close together as they were, and before long Jordan pushed himself off Taylor with a final kiss. Taylor ran his hand through the mess on his stomach. “This is going to be a fun ride home,” he said cheerfully.

“Oh for God’s sake, Hallsy,” Jordan muttered. “I can’t take you anywhere.” He grabbed his wand from the front seat, pointed it at Taylor and said, “ _Tergeo_ Hallsy.”

Taylor waggled his eyebrows. “Is that a wand in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”

Jordan groaned. “I can make you stop talking,” he threatened, climbing back into the front seat.

***

The next night, Jordan watched as Taylor lit it up against the Kings and scored the OT winner. Nuge coughed pointedly next to him, but Jordan chose to ignore him.

***

Taylor followed Jordan into his bedroom after the game, insisting that “OT goals are at least worth a hand job, Ebby,” and then woke up him up with sloppy, lazy kisses that turned into Taylor slotting his massive thigh between Jordan’s legs until they were both too turned on and desperate to coordinate handjobs and ended up rutting against each other until they came in their pants like the teenager Taylor almost still was. Jordan was blissfully floating in the afterglow of morning sex when Taylor poked him hard in the arm and said, “So, you’re a wizard.”

Jordan was still hazy from the orgasms, so he thought he could be excused for not managing to say anything more coherent than, “Bwuh?”

Taylor bit his shoulder gently. “You’re a wizard, but that’s all I know. You should tell me more.”

They didn’t have any obligations until morning skate before leaving for a road trip the next day, so Jordan spent the morning curled up next to Taylor in bed, talking about the wizarding community between exchanging soft touches and more heated kisses. He knew he was probably babbling and that Taylor didn’t really care about the difference between Transfiguration and Charms or how Jordan had always wished he was better at Arithmancy, but had never had the knack for it, but after hiding for so long, being able to talk about magic made Jordan feel uncomfortably exposed, so he kept talking about the wizarding community in Edmonton and pranks he pulled on his siblings growing up until he felt more settled.

Taylor was predictably delighted by the idea of the wizarding section of West Ed. “You have to take me there,” he interrupted. Taylor had been badgering Jordan about where he had bought the bag of Bertie Bott’s for months and the realization that he could actually take Taylor to the candy store in West Ed was a revelation.

“As soon as we got back from this road trip,” Jordan promised, pressing a kiss against the soft skin beneath Taylor’s ear and trying to clamp down on the overwhelming surge of contentedness. 

“Do you just never use any magic?” Taylor asked later, as Jordan was rinsing their lunch dishes in the sink.

“I try not to. A lot of spells are too obvious and using magic around the rink or during a game or on my gear would be cheating. It was little things like cleaning that were the hardest to learn to do the Muggle way.” He paused to turn on the dishwasher before admitting, “I cheated some.”

“Ebby, have you been doing our laundry by magic this whole time?”

“Hallsy, I have no idea how to use a washing machine. I had never even seen one before we moved in here.”

“I think if you’re using magic to do chores, you should be responsible for more of the cleaning. Even division of labor and all.”

Jordan was grateful he now had a new way to shut Taylor up.

***

They were driving to the rink the next day when Taylor turned to Jordan and all but shouted, “Oh my God, your weird, boring friends are wizards too, aren’t they?”

“They’re not boring,” Jordan said reflexively.

“They were super boring, Ebby.” 

“They just didn’t know how to talk to Muggles. You’ll have to meet them again.” Taylor pouted and Jordan squeezed his hand. “I like you best, even if you are a Muggle.” 

“I still think they’re weird,” Taylor said, but he squeezed Jordan’s hand back and sounded mollified.

***

They were sitting next to each other on the plane home from St. Louis – Jordan using Taylor’s tendency to poke at the stitches in his head as an excuse to hold his hand in public – when Taylor leaned over and said quietly, “You said me finding out was a mistake.”

“It was. Like, I’m really glad you know, but there are laws about telling Muggles.”

“What happens to Muggles who find out by accident?” Jordan didn’t answer until Taylor squeezed his hand and said, “Ebby?”

“I was supposed to erase your memory.”

“Jesus, Ebs. Does that actually happen?”

Jordan nodded. “There’s a whole department of the Ministry dedicated to wiping the memories of Muggles who find out about magic.”

“That’s... that’s really messed up. That’s like secret society conspiracy level messed up.”

“I thought about it,” Jordan admitted. “You were mad at me and I didn’t know if you’d ever talk to me again and I thought that if I could just make you forget about that night, everything would go back to normal.” He squeezed Taylor’s hand. “And then I really thought about it and I couldn’t. I couldn’t take advantage of you like that and still look you in the eye. I’ve never used magic on you without you knowing and I never will. I promise, Hallsy.”

“Of course you wouldn’t, Ebby. I trust you.”

"You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone about all of this, Hallsy," Jordan told Taylor, his voice low.

"Could they still come and wipe my memory?" Jordan nodded. "And would you get in trouble for not reporting me?"

Jordan shrugged. "Maybe. That's not what I'm worried about though." He squeezed Taylor's hand tightly. He still had nightmares sometimes of waking up to find Obliviators appearing in their living room and hauling Taylor off to wipe his memory.

"I won't tell anyone, I promise." Taylor rested his head against Jordan’s shoulder and they spent the rest of the flight back to Edmonton in silence.

***

“What about sports? Do wizards have sports?” It was two weeks after Jordan’s revelation and Taylor was still asking Jordan random questions about the magical community at least once a day.

“Not as many as Muggles do, but yeah, we have some sports. The best is Quidditch.”

“I’m pretty sure you’re making up half these words, Ebby.”

Jordan kicked Taylor in the shin. “I swear to Gretzky, I’ve really played a sport called Quidditch. It’s a little like basketball, but you play on brooms.”

“Like a witch’s broomstick?”

“Stereotypes, Hallsy,” Jordan said primly. “Both wizards and witches can ride brooms.”

“Please, please tell me you have a broomstick and will take me flying.”

Jordan took Taylor to Beaulieu’s at West Ed to watch a Quidditch match on their next day off and Taylor loved everything about it. He even warmed up to Mike and Stephan once they introduced him to firewhiskey. “It’s not as cool as hockey,” he said after two hours, Jordan nodding in agreement, “but it’s still pretty awesome.”

“The Stonewall Stormers are near Winnipeg,” Jordan told him. “There might be a match when we play the Jets.”

The Stormers were playing the Sweetwater All-Stars the day after the Oilers played the Jets, and Jordan was pretty sure he was the first hockey player to actually be happy about a free day in Winnipeg. 

“Maybe Toews,” Taylor said when Jordan mentioned it to him. “His family still lives here, I think.”

“Hallsy, I love my mom too, but not enough to make me happy about spending a day in Winnipeg in February.”

They made their excuses to their teammates and snuck out of the hotel the day after beating the Jets, both still high from their goals, and Jordan made them duck into an alley to pull on robes before joining the crowd of wizards waiting at a dingy bar to catch the Portkey to the pitch.

“Seriously, robes?” Taylor hissed in Jordan’s ear.

“Shut up, we’re trying to blend in.”

“By wearing robes.”

“I told you there were laws about telling Muggles about magic. Blending in is good. Plus, I spelled the robes to help keep us warm.”

“Can I get in trouble for being here?”

“If anyone asks, say you’re my cousin. Or better yet, just don’t say anything. No talking.”

Taylor spent the entire day with eyes round like saucers, trying to look at everything at once, which reminded Jordan just how new Taylor was to this world. Jordan had started openly using magic around the house, but that was a far cry from a crowded Quidditch pitch full of wizards and witches. Children in robes zoomed past on brooms, threatening to knock people over, vendors hawked magical sweets and every time the All-Stars scored, their fans send up a shower of red, white and blue sparks. 

“It’s not that much stranger than West Ed,” Jordan said, helping Taylor carry his small mountain of cauldron cakes, Fizzing Whizzbees and Chocolate Frogs to their seats.

“This is nothing like West Ed. That’s a mall. A mall with weird stores, but it’s just mall. I’ve been to malls before. This is... this is something else.”

Jordan bought a pair of Omnioculars for them to share, conjured up bluebell flames in a coffee mug he had stolen from the hotel that morning to keep their hands and feet warm, and they huddled together under a blanket, splitting Taylor’s candy and Butterbeer and arguing about Quidditch. Jordan was trying to convince Taylor to support the Moose Jaw Meteorites, but Taylor was being stubborn.

“I don’t know, the Haileybury team is closer to Kingston.”

“Yeah, and Moose Jaw is way closer to Calgary, which is where you’re _actually_ from.” Taylor pinched Jordan’s leg under the blanket in retaliation.

They stumbled back to the hotel at dusk, faces numb from the cold and stomachs full of candy, and Jordan couldn’t imagine a better way to have spent a free day. It was worth the chirping about their bro dates on the flight to St. Louis. It was a date, Jordan thought later. He and Taylor were dating, or at least he was pretty sure they were. It’s hard to date your best friend who you already lived with and spent all your free time with, but Taylor hadn’t slept in his own bed in over a month and Jordan was getting used to waking up to Taylor’s sloppy, uncoordinated kisses and the way Taylor would pin him against their front door after a particularly good game and kiss him, dirty and open mouthed, until Jordan was shaky with want, and then lead him to their bed, push him into the mattress and take him apart with his mouth and hands.

They couldn’t actually go on dates in Edmonton. They already went out for lunch most days and Horcs had told God and the Oil Nation about their ice cream dates, but they were too famous in Edmonton to do anything more so a day at a Quidditch game, huddling together for warmth, was as close to a proper date as they could get. Jordan couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.

*** 

Packing for a long road trip was the worst, even with magic, so Jordan wasn’t surprised when Taylor wandered into his room the day before a four game road trip carrying two pairs of shoes and a stack of shirts.

“Ebby, I can’t fit everything into my bag. Do you have extra space?”

“Toss ‘em here,” Jordan told him, grabbing his wand from his back pocket and casting a quick shrinking charm. Taylor picked up the miniature shoes and looked at them with wonder. “I’ll make them normal again when you want to wear them,” Jordan promised.

“How could you give up magic?” Taylor asked, still staring at the pair of shoes that fit easily on his palm.

“It was magic or hockey,” Jordan told him. “It wasn’t a hard choice.”

Jordan was used to people’s politely incredulous looks when he tried to explain that getting to play hockey in the NHL was worth any amount of sacrifice, but Taylor only nodded. “Yeah, I can understand that.”

***

Jordan’s second season in the NHL ended in disappointment and early April. It also ended without Taylor, who had left for surgery and rehab a week earlier. Jordan wanted to Apparate to Cleveland to check on him, but Taylor had convinced him not to.

“There’s no way you’d be able to explain suddenly showing up in Ohio,” he told Jordan over Skype. “And at least when you’re in Edmonton, we can still Skype.”

“I’ll Apparate to Edmonton to call you every day,” Jordan promised.

“You could always Apparate to Kingston and visit me.”

“Because your mom wouldn’t ask any questions about why I’m visiting you for the day from Calgary.”

Taylor pouted and Jordan felt a stab of embarrassment that he was willingly sleeping with a guy who thought pouting would get him his way. He was also ashamed by how well it was working. “I’ll visit,” Jordan promised. “We could go to the Quidditch World Cup. Canada is hosting it this year.”

Taylor beamed at him from his hospital bed and Jordan ruthlessly suppressed the urge to kiss his fingers and hold them up to the computer screen. It wasn’t the Cup, but he still felt like he had won something this season.

**Author's Note:**

> Or as I described it on LJ _Ebs is a wizard. He still plays hockey_. Anyway, this is easily the longest thing I've ever written, and also the first time I've managed to finish something other than a one-shot. (It was mostly written during the first two weeks of August, but it took two and a half months to edit.) A huge thanks to accidentallymelted for the excellent and speedy beta job.
> 
> Title comes from "It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)" by The Barenaked Ladies.
> 
> The magic all comes directly from HP, and if you're curious about anything I mention, there are more detailed notes on the spells & the magical community [here](http://til-midnight.livejournal.com/363110.html).
> 
> I'm here on [LJ](http://til-midnight.livejournal.com/) and [Tumblr](http://lecturinginroom3b.tumblr.com/) if you want to say hi.


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